The Toronto Raptors have ruled out five players for “health and safety protocols” for their game against the Detroit Pistons on Wednesday.
O.G. Anunoby, Fred VanVleet, Pascal Siakam, Patrick McCaw and Malachi Flynn were ruled out for the match-up that was originally slated for Tuesday at Amalie Arena but was postponed due to what the league said was “positive test results and ongoing contact tracing within the Raptors organization.”
Sunday’s game against the Chicago Bulls was also postponed.
Nick Nurse and five members of his staff who were sidelined for Friday’s game against Houston will also be unavailable for Wednesday’s game.
General Manager Bobby Webster said they will likely be out for Thursday’s game as well against the Boston Celtics due to the protocols. It is their last scheduled game until the All Star break.
The Raptors have called up two players from their G-League team the 905.
The NBA cautioned that Wednesday is a tentative rescheduling date for the game against the Pistons, and is “pending additional test results.”
Toronto had managed to largely avoid the global pandemic until now, despite playing their home games out of Florida — a COVID-19 hotbed — due to Canada’s border restrictions and health and safety protocols in Ontario.
The Raptors were one of four remaining teams in the league that hadn’t had a game postponed until Tuesday.
GM Bobby Webster was asked what he’s learned from the team’s first major brush with the virus.
“It’s what you can imagine,” Webster said in a Zoom call with media on Tuesday night. “It’s the emotional stress of having colleagues that potentially, obviously, can be sick. The enormous amount of stress everyone feels, everyone’s walking a bit on eggshells here in the locker room and you can’t necessarily be as friendly.”
“The basketball will go on, we’ll play the games, but just to maintain everybody’s belonging and familiarity is really important.”
Ontario’s Opposition says the province’s long-term care minister should have spoken out earlier on the risk COVID-19 posed to the province’s nursing homes.
WATCH: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/03/01/long-term-care-minister-should-have-gone-public-about-covid-19-concerns-horwath/
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says Minister Merrilee Fullerton should have made her concerns public when the government said the opposite at the start of the pandemic.
Newly released transcripts show Fulllerton told the province’s long-term care commission that she was aware of the dangers the novel coronavirus posed to the sector long before it was declared a global pandemic.
Fullerton’s told the commission that she and her ministry advocated for stronger measures than what the government was willing to put in place, earlier than they were willing to act.
Fullerton, who is family doctor, says today that she is not a public health specialist and at the time felt it was important to take advice from experts in the field.
Horwath says if Fullerton had spoken up about the situation she could have saved lives.
Fullerton testified before the Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission last week, with the transcript posted online Sunday night.
“You were ahead of the chief medical officer of health in many respects, from your notes anyway,” John Callaghan, the commission lawyer questioning Fullerton, told her.
For instance, Fullerton’s notes from the time suggest she was concerned about asymptomatic spread of COVID-19 in long-term care homes as early as Feb. 5, 2020. That possibility wasn’t publicly acknowledged by the government until much later.
“I recognize that at times people can overstep, so that was — I needed to listen to the experts and the science and … I was trying to wear my — not my doctor or public health hat, because that’s not the role I had,” she told the commission.
But she noted that her personal history gave her insights into the situation that other politicians may lack.
“I had suspicions early on only _ well, because I’m a family doctor and spent many years dealing with the elderly,” she said. “They may not present with typical symptoms, and so you always have to be watching.”
In other cases, such as the directive for staffers to only work at one long-term care home rather than toggling between facilities, potentially spreading the virus, it was legal issues and questions about whether there would be enough staff to keep the homes running that delayed government action.
COVID-19 has devastated Ontario’s long-term care system, causing the deaths of 3,744 residents and 11 staff members so far.
Fullerton also refused to suggest the risk of COVID-19 was low in a video filmed in early March, the transcript shows.
“I was very concerned about doing a video that would show or tell people that the risk was low, even though that was what health experts and the health leaders in Canada were saying,” she told the commission.
Her notes from the pandemic’s first wave, read out during the interview, also show that she advocated for locking down long-term care homes before the province did so, and was concerned about staff not wearing PPE at all times the week before the province made it mandatory.
Fullerton told the commission she was also advocating for essential caregivers to be allowed back into long-term care homes as early as May.
Such caregivers — usually family members — weren’t allowed back into the facilities until July, and even then, the Ministry of Long-Term Care has said, the rules were being applied inconsistently until adjustments were made in September.
But she said others — particularly Dr. David Williams, the chief medical officer of health — said the risk of essential caregivers bringing COVID-19 into the facilities was too great.
“I was very eager to get caregivers back into the homes, because I believe it was well-being and emotional well-being,” Fullerton said. “However, others understood differently and had their reasons for understanding the risks that they did, and so it was left.”
The transcript also paints a portrait of a nascent ministry thrust into a pandemic before it could gather its bearings.
The Ministry of Long-Term Care was spun off from the Ministry of Health (formerly known as the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care) mid-2019, and the commission heard it spent much of that year getting set up.
The Ministry of Long-Term Care was spun off from the Ministry of Health in an effort to “put a lens on the long-standing neglect” of the sector, Fullerton said.
But when the pandemic struck, the Ministry of Long-Term Care was still largely dependent on the Ministry of Health, she said, and when it came time to communicate with long-term care homes about the pandemic, the newly formed ministry was being left out.
“Just wondering why Ministry of Health is issuing, reissuing the guidelines without MLTC,” Fullerton wrote in an email early in the pandemic, which was read out during the interview. “I understand MOH is the lead, but MLTC must be part of this communication to our own sector.”
Her chief of staff echoed the sentiment in a separate email dated March 31.
“PPE has been deployed to hospitals and correctional facilities. This was done with LTC partners on the line,” he wrote. “We are too often the forgotten partner.”
The commission is set to present a report on April 30 that will include recommendations aimed at preventing similar outcomes in the future, in addition to two interim reports that have already been released.
Tuesday’s game between the Toronto Raptors and Detroit Pistons has been postponed and tentatively rescheduled for Wednesday night at 7 p.m. ET pending additional test results, the league announced Monday.
The postponement is due to positive test results and ongoing contact tracing within the Raptors organization.
Last Friday, six members of the Raptors’ coaching staff — including head coach Nick Nurse — as well as forward Pascal Siakam entered the league’s health and safety protocols and were unavailable for that night’s game against the Houston Rockets, which nonetheless went ahead as scheduled.
The NBA then opted to postpone Toronto’s following game against the Chicago Bulls, which was set to take place Sunday evening, due to the team not having the required minimum eight players available to participate.
This latest postponement marks the 35th of the regular season thus far, with 31 due to the league’s health and safety protocols.
Toronto only has two games — the one against Detroit and then another against the Boston Celtics slated for March 4 — remaining before the All-Star Break.
The City of Toronto is rolling out a “neighbourhood ambassador” program to help promote vaccinations in the city.
WATCH: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/03/01/neighbourhood-ambassadors-to-promote-vaccination-in-toronto/
Councillor Joe Cressy announced the program in the city’s daily COVID-19 briefing on Monday as part of a “community-based vaccine campaign to support vaccine uptake, to tackle vaccine hesitancy and to engage targeted hard hit communities.”
Cressy said the plan will be the largest community mobilization effort in the city’s history. It aims to aid the goal of reaching herd immunity and vaccinating over 70 per cent of the population by “building trust and ensuring access” to the vaccine.
For the first component of the plan, the city is partnering with local neighbourhood leaders across the city to maximize reach and is bringing on board 280 neighbourhood ambassadors to promote vaccines in their communities.
Cressy said research has long shown that people are more likely to take vaccines “when it’s people they trust who are making the case.”
“Your local priest or your pastor or your rabbi or your imam, your barber, your crossing guard, the kids’ soccer coach — trusted local leaders to help make the case, provide information and help their neighbours access the vaccine — that’s what 280 neighborhood ambassadors will do,” said Cressy.
The second component of the plan involves partnering with 140 community agencies and a number of “anchor agencies” to mobilize vaccines in the neighbourhoods in which they operate.
These will be trusted, local community organizations that will go door-to-door to promote vaccines, “to confront vaccine hesitancy” and help the city identify and organize locations for mobile pop-up vaccination sites, Cressy said.
The third part of the plan involves targeted outreach in communities that have been hit hard by COVID-19.
“When it comes to COVID, we’re not all equal. The data has made this abundantly clear,” said Cressy. “So an effective campaign for vaccines requires tailored approaches to engage different communities.”
To that end, city staff are working with local organizations to create specific campaigns for Toronto’s diverse communities including Indigenous, South Asian and Muslim people, seniors and persons with disabilities. Cressy added that the city’s Black scientist task force is already part of the city’s vaccine plans and is working with and supporting the Black community.
Cressy called the plan the “opposite of a one-size-fits-all vaccine approach.”
“You can think of it almost as an election,” said Cressy. “But in this case we need to win more than 70 per cent of the vote and we need absolutely everyone working together on the ground to get residents to the polls or in this case to the vaccine clinics.”
Cressy said research has long shown that people are more likely to take vaccines “when it’s people they trust who are making the case.”
“Your local priest or your pastor or your rabbi or your imam, your barber, your crossing guard, the kids’ soccer coach — trusted local leaders to help make the case, provide information and help their neighbours access the vaccine — that’s what 280 neighborhood ambassadors will do,” said Cressy.
The second component of the plan involves partnering with 140 community agencies and a number of “anchor agencies” to mobilize vaccines in the neighbourhoods in which they operate.
These will be trusted, local community organizations that will go door-to-door to promote vaccines, “to confront vaccine hesitancy” and help the city identify and organize locations for mobile pop-up vaccination sites, Cressy said.
The third part of the plan involves targeted outreach in communities that have been hit hard by COVID-19.
“When it comes to COVID, we’re not all equal. The data has made this abundantly clear,” said Cressy. “So an effective campaign for vaccines requires tailored approaches to engage different communities.”
To that end, city staff are working with local organizations to create specific campaigns for Toronto’s diverse communities including Indigenous, South Asian and Muslim people, seniors and persons with disabilities. Cressy added that the city’s Black scientist task force is already part of the city’s vaccine plans and is working with and supporting the Black community.
Cressy called the plan the “opposite of a one-size-fits-all vaccine approach.”
“You can think of it almost as an election,” said Cressy. “But in this case we need to win more than 70 per cent of the vote and we need absolutely everyone working together on the ground to get residents to the polls or in this case to the vaccine clinics.”
The program is part of Toronto’s larger vaccine playbook revealed Monday, which includes nine mass vaccinations sites and training 1,400 staff. Other vaccination locations include 49 hospital-operated sites, 46 community health centre sites and 249 pharmacies.
Toronto will not be setting up its own booking system to schedule appointments, but will be using the province’s system instead in order to gather more information on a larger scale.
In terms of prioritization, the province has expanded phase 1 of the rollout to include those experiencing homelessness, who began getting vaccinated this week in Toronto. Those 80 and older have also been included in phase 1, adding over 130,000 to the city’s list and Toronto still has 100,000 healthcare workers waiting to be vaccinated as well.
As has been the case since day one however, the city says much depends on vaccine supply.
“The more free flowing vaccine supply comes the easier it becomes for us to really start addressing needs across the broad range of populations,” said Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health.
With files from Mark McAllister
York Region began allowing vaccination appointments to be booked online for residents aged 80 and over on Monday morning, but within hours all appointments were fully booked.
WATCH: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/03/01/online-vaccination-appointments-fully-booked-within-hours-york-region/
The online bookings opened at 8:00 a.m., but just after 11 a.m. the region tweeted that no more spots were currently available.
“Future appointments will be available once capacity allows and vaccine supply is available,” York Region tweeted.
“Within the first two hours, approximately 20,000 appointments were booked across the five York Region locations,” Patrick Casey, Director of Corporate Communications for the region explained.
“Residents will be notified when future appointments are available through multiple communication channels, including on york.ca, social media and our media and community partners,” Casey added.
“At this time residents are urged to remain patient and will be notified as more appointment bookings become available.”
Earlier, York Region said high traffic was causing its online booking portal to operate “slower than usual.”
Breakfast Television’s Melanie Ng was unable to connect to the site at all, after it appeared to crash under heavy traffic.
York’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Karim Kurji, said that delays were inevitable as people rushed to book appointments.
“We do expect that there will be quite a demand, particularly on the initial day. We hope that you won’t have to wait [more than] a few days in the meantime,” said Kurji.
In a news release, Monday evening, York region health said they are currently supplied with the Pfizer vaccine.
“York Region Public Health and our three hospital partners have been confirmed to receive 9,360 doses of Pfizer vaccine each week for the next two weeks; each of the four partners will share doses equally; we do not have confirmation on delivery of either Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccine at this time,” they said.
The Toronto Raptors game scheduled for Sunday night against the Chicago Bulls in Tampa has been postponed due to the NBA’s “health and safety protocols.”
WATCH: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/02/28/toronto-raptors-game-against-chicago-postponed-due-to-covid-19/
“Because of positive test results and ongoing contact tracing within the Raptors, the team will not have the league-required eight available players to proceed with the scheduled game against the Bulls,” read a brief statement by the NBA.
The Raptors were missing head coach Nick Nurse, five members of his staff and star forward Pascal Siakam for Friday’s win over Houston due to the league’s COVID protocols.
The Raptors used 12 players on Friday and had 14 listed as available to play that night. For Sunday’s game, Siakam was the only player who had been listed on Saturday’s injury report as out because of health and safety protocols – which indicates that results that came back on Saturday either showed more problems, or the contact tracing investigations showed that players had been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19 and may have to quarantine.
General manager Bobby Webster would not confirm Friday if any of the coaching staff members or players had tested positive for COVID-19, citing privacy concerns.
Toronto were one of four teams that hadn’t had a postponement this season.
Toronto is scheduled to play two more games this week ahead of the All-Star break. The status of games against Detroit on Tuesday and Boston on Thursday have yet to be determined.
This is the 30th NBA game to be postponed so far this season because of COVID-19 testing or contact tracing.
Files from The Canadian Press were used in this report
NEW YORK — With homebound nominees appearing by remote video and hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler on different sides of the country, a very socially distanced 78th Golden Globe Awards trudged on in the midst of the pandemic and a storm of criticism.
“Schitt’s Creek,” which had gone unnominated in the top category every previous season at the Globes, won best comedy series for its final season. The show’s Catherine O’Hara also took best actress in a comedy series. They were among many of the evening’s awards to go to streaming services, which — facing scant traditional studio competition — dominated the Globes like never before.
Fey took the stage at New York’s Rainbow Room while Poehler remained at the Globes’ usual home at the Beverly Hilton. In their opening remarks, they managed their typically well-timed back-and-forth despite being almost 3,000 miles from each other.
“I always knew my career would end with me wandering around the Rainbow Room pretending to talk to Amy,” said Fey. “I just thought it would be later.”
They appeared before masked attendees but no stars. Instead, the sparse tables — where Hollywood royalty are usually crammed together and plied with alcohol during the show — were occupied by “smoking-hot first responders and essential workers,” as Fey said.
In a production nightmare but one that’s become familiar during the pandemic, the night’s first winner accepted his award while muted. Only after presenter Laura Dern apologized for the technical difficulties did Daniel Kaluuya, who won best supporting actor for his performance as Black Panther leader Fred Hampton in “Judas and the Black Messiah,” get his speech in. When he finally came through, he waged his finger at the camera and said, “You’re doing me dirty!”
Pandemic improvising was only part of the damage control for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which puts on the Globes. After The Los Angeles Times revealed that there are no Black members in the 87-person voting body of the HFPA, the press association — which Ricky Gervais last year called “very, very racist” in his opening monologue — came under mounting pressure to overhaul itself and better reflect the industry it holds sway in.
This year, none of the most acclaimed Black-led films — “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “One Night in Miami,” “Judas and the Black Messiah,” “Da 5 Bloods” — were nominated for the Globes’ best picture award. With the HFPA potentially fighting for its Hollywood life, Sunday’s Globes were part apology tour. Fey and Poehler started in quickly on the issue.
“Look, a lot of flashy garbage got nominated but that happens,” said Poehler. “That’s like their thing. But a number of Black actors and Black-led projects were overlooked.”
Within the first half hour of the NBC telecast, members of the press association also appeared on stage to pledge change. “We recognize we have our own work to do,” said vice-president Helen Hoehne. “We must have Black journalists in our organization.”
The show, postponed two months from its usual early-January perch, promised little of the glamour that makes the Globes one of the frothiest and glitziest events of the year. Due to the pandemic, there was no parade of stars down the red carpet outside the Beverly Hilton.
When attendees would normally be streaming down the red carpet on Sunday evening, many stars were instead posing virtually. Regina King, resplendent in a dazzling dress, stood before her yawning dog. Carey Mulligan, nominated for “Promising Young Woman,” said from a London hotel room that she was wearing heels for the first time in more than a year.
The circumstances led to some award-show anomalies. Mark Ruffalo, appearing remotely, won best actor in a limited series for “I Know This Much Is True” with his kids celebrating behind him and his wife, Sunrise Coigney, sitting alongside. John Boyega, supporting actor winner for his performance in Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe” anthology, raised his leg to show he was wearing track pants below his more elegant white jacket. Bob Odenkirk, while appearing on five screens with fellow TV actor nominees before an ad break, took the moment to meet a legend, virtually. “Mr. Pacino, very good to meet you … on the screen,” he said. (The award went to Josh O’Connor for “The Crown.”)
Some speeches were pre-taped. The previously recorded speeches by Jon Batiste, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for the wining “Soul” score went without hiccup even though presenter Tracy Morgan first announced “Sal” as the winner.
Other awards included Pixar’s “Soul” for best animated film; Rosumund Pike took best actress in a comedy or musical film for “I Care a Lot”; and Aaron Sorkin (“Trial of the Chicago 7”) for best screenplay. The film, a favourite to win best drama film at the Globes, was sold to Netflix by Paramount Pictures last summer due to the pandemic. “Netflix saved our lives,” said Sorkin.
As showtime neared, the backlash over the HFPA threatened to overwhelm the Globes. Yet the Globes have persisted because of their popularity (the show ranks as the third most-watched award show, after the Oscars and Grammys), their profitability (NBC paid $60 million for broadcast rights in 2018) and because they serve as important marketing material for contending films and Oscar hopefuls. That may be especially true this year when the pandemic has upset the normal rhythms of buzz in a virtual awards season lacking the usual frenzy.
The Globes are happening on the original date of the Academy Awards, which are instead to be held April 25.
Netflix comes in with a commanding 42 nominations, including a leading six nods for David Fincher’s “Mank” and “The Crown” also topping TV nominees with six nods. Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” also from Netflix, is also a heavyweight with five nominations.
ORLANDO, Fla. — Taking the stage for the first time since leaving office, former President Donald Trump on Sunday called for GOP unity, even as he exacerbated intraparty divisions by attacking fellow Republicans and promoting lies about the election in a speech that made clear he intends to remain a dominant political force.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he has been hailed as a returning hero, Trump blasted his successor, President Joe Biden, and tried to lay out a vision for the future of the GOP that revolves firmly around him, despite his loss in November.
“Do you miss me yet?” Trump said after taking the stage to his old rally soundtrack and cheers from the supportive crowd.
Trump, in his speech, tried to downplay the civil war gripping the party over the extent to which Republicans should embrace him, even as he unfurled an enemies list, calling out by name the 10 House Republicans and seven GOP senators who voted to impeach or convict him for inciting the U.S. Capitol riot. He ended by singling out Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican, who has faced tremendous backlash in Wyoming for saying Trump should no longer play a role in the party or headline the event.
While he insisted the division was merely a spat “between a handful of Washington, D.C., establishment political hacks and everybody else, all over the country,” Trump had a message for the incumbents who had dared to cross him: “Get rid of ’em all.”
The conference, held this year in Orlando instead of the Washington suburbs to evade COVID-19 restrictions, served as a tribute to Trump and Trumpism, complete with a golden statue in his likeness on display. Speakers, including many potential 2024 hopefuls, argued that the party must embrace the former president and his followers, even after the deadly insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
They also repeated in panel after panel his unfounded claims that he lost reelection only because of mass voter fraud, even though such claims have been rejected by judges, Republican state officials and Trump’s own administration.
Trump, too, continued to repeat what Democrats have dubbed the “big lie,” calling the election “rigged” and insisting that he won in November, even though he lost by more than 7 million votes.
“As you know, they just lost the White House,” he said of Biden, rewriting history.
It is highly unusual for past American presidents to publicly criticize their successors in the months after leaving office. Ex-presidents typically step out of the spotlight for at least a while; Barack Obama was famously seen kitesurfing on vacation after he departed, while George W. Bush said he believed Obama “deserves my silence” and took up painting.
Not Trump.
He delivered a sharp rebuke of what he framed as the new administration’s first month of failures, especially Biden’s approach to immigration and the border.
“Joe Biden has had the most disastrous first month of any president in modern history,” Trump said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki had brushed off the expected criticism last week. “We’ll see what he says, but our focus is certainly not on what President Trump is saying at CPAC,” she told reporters.
Aside from criticizing Biden, Trump used the speech to crown himself the future of the Republican Party, even as many leaders argue they must move in a new, less divisive direction after Republicans lost not just the White House, but both chambers of Congress.
Though Trump has flirted with the the idea of creating a third party, he pledged Sunday to remain part of “our beloved” GOP.
“I’m going to continue to fight right by your side. We’re not starting new parties,” he said. “We have the Republican Party. It’s going to be strong and united like never before.” Yet Trump spent much of the speech lashing out at those he has deemed insufficiently loyal and dubbed “RINOs” — Republican in name only — for failing to stand with him.
“We cannot have leaders who show more passion for condemning their fellow Americans than they have ever shown for standing up to Democrats, the media and the radicals who want to turn America into a socialist country,” Trump said.
Trump did not use his speech to announce plans to run again, but he repeatedly teased the prospect as he predicted a Republican would win back the White House in 2024.
“And I wonder who that will be,” he offered. “Who, who, who will that be? I wonder.”
It remains unclear, however, how much appetite there would be for another Trump term, even in the room of staunch supporters.
The conference’s annual unscientific straw poll of just over 1,000 attendees found that 97% approved of the job Trump did as president. But they were much more ambiguous when asked whether he should run again, with only 68% saying he should.
If the 2024 primary were held today and Trump were in the race, just 55% said they would vote for him, followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 21%. Without Trump in the field, DeSantis garnered 43% support, followed by 8% for South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and 7% each for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
While he no longer has his social media megaphone after being barred from Twitter and Facebook, Trump had been inching back into public life even before the speech. He called into conservative news outlets after talk radio star Rush Limbaugh’s death and has issued statements, including one blasting Mitch McConnell after the Senate Republican leader excoriated Trump for inciting the Capitol riot. McConnell has since said he would “absolutely” support Trump if he were the GOP nominee in 2024.
At his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump has also been quietly meeting with aides and senior party leaders as he builds his post-presidential political operation. While he has already backed several pro-Trump candidates, including one challenging an impeachment supporter, aides have been working this past week to develop benchmarks for those seeking his endorsement to make sure the candidates are serious and have set up full-fledged political and fundraising organizations before he gets involved.
They are also planning a new super PAC that could raise unlimited amounts of money, though one aide cautioned they were still deciding whether to create a new entity or repurpose an existing America First super PAC.
Trump hinted at the effort Sunday, voicing his commitment to helping elect Republicans and calling on attendees to join him.
“I stand before you today to declare that the incredible journey we begun together … is far from being over,” he said.
Ontario reported 1,062 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday as the province passed a sobering milestone.
It’s the fifth straight day more than 1,000 new infections were confirmed, bringing the provincial total to 300,816 since the pandemic began.
The seven-day rolling average of new cases sits at 1,104, which is an increase from 1,031 last Sunday.
Toronto reported 259 new cases while Peel Region added 201 new infections to its total. York Region reported just 86 new cases – the fewest number of new cases since moving into the Red-Control zone last week.
An additional 23 variants of concern were also confirmed in the province with 528 cases of the variant first discovered in the UK. There are 27 variant strains of the virus first confirmed in South African and just three of the variant first discovered in Brazil. The total number of new variants of concern increased by 158 over the last seven days.
Another 20 people have died as a result of COVID-19, none involving residents in a long-term care setting, leaving the provincial death just shy of 7,000.
Provincial officials processed 49,185 tests in the last 24 hour period with more than 18,000 samples remaining to be confirmed.
Another 19,167 vaccines were administered on Saturday, bringing the provincial total up to 687,271. Just over 260,000 Ontarians have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
While the number of hospitalizations fell to 627, likely due to the lack of full reporting from hospitals on the weekend, the number of COVID-19 patients in the ICU rose to 289 while those on ventilators also increased to 185.
The pandemic diplomacy at work between the United States and Canada is continuing, this time with the secretary of state.
Antony Blinken will visit virtually with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau as part of the Biden administration’s post-Trump fence-mending campaign.
Blinken’s “virtual trips” to Canada and Mexico mark the secretary’s first bilateral video conferences since taking office.
The visit follows up on Trudeau’s own virtual summit this week with the U.S. president, which produced a “road map” for collaboration on issues like climate change, the economy and COVID-19.
With travel still ill-advised, Trudeau and Garneau will dial in from Ottawa, with Blinken at the State Department’s headquarters in Foggy Bottom.
Spokesperson Ned Price says the agenda includes North American defence, security and human rights in the West and around the world.
That means the conversations will likely include the plight of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, two Canadians who have spent the last two years in custody in China.
Spavor and Kovrig — known in Canada simply as the “two Michaels” — were swept up after Canada’s arrest in December 2018 of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese tech giant Huawei.
Meng is in the midst of an extradition hearing in Vancouver to determine whether she should be sent to the U.S. to face fraud charges.
On Tuesday, Biden vowed to work with Canada to secure the two Michaels’ release, but offered no clues as to what specifically the U.S. is prepared to do.
Justice Department spokesman Marc Raimondi would only say the U.S. will “continue to seek extradition” of Meng, who is under house arrest in Vancouver and due back in court Monday.
Earlier this month, Canada, the U.S. and a coalition of 56 other countries collectively denounced the state-sponsored arbitrary detention of foreign nationals for political purposes.
Julie Chung, the acting assistant secretary for State’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, said the U.S. supports that measure and backs Canada’s demand for the release of Spavor and Kovrig.
“Human beings should not be used as pawns,” she said Thursday. “We stand by Canada, our strong friend and partner, in the issues of arbitrary detention and for the release of the two Canadian citizens.”
Blinken is also scheduled to meet with a group of Canadian students, as well as with Mexico’s foreign secretary and secretary of the economy during a “visit” to a port of entry facility along the southern U.S. border.
Meanwhile, efforts to fortify Canada-U.S. ties have continued, albeit virtually, along other departmental fronts all week.
Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson spoke Wednesday with John Kerry, Biden’s special envoy on climate, to shore up plans for more stringent emissions-reduction targets in advance of a climate summit in April.
And Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Transport Minister Omar Alghabra have committed to tougher vehicle pollution standards, and collaborating on new standards for aircraft and ships.
